Bread Salad with Tomatoes and Feta

The feta in the fridge got me thinking of a Greek salad, bursting with Kalamata olives and sun-ripened tomatoes. The tomatoes, in turn, got me thinking of panzanella, the Italian salad that, like Spanish gazpacho, resurrects stale bread by combining it with tomatoes to form something greater than the sum of its parts. Thus, this: A Greek salad-panzanella hybrid. Greek bread salad? Italian bread salad with feta? I thought about calling this panzanella dei greci, but figured that my Italian-speaking acquaintances would never talk to me again if I did.

Tomatoes are, of course, fruit in a biological sense and therefore share in all of fruit’s attendant glory and misfortune. The glory comes in August, when I am up to my eyeballs in tomatoes, peaches, cherries, peppers and corn-on-the-cob in all of their fully-ripened, resplendently juicy sweetness. The misfortune is ours the other eleven months of the year, when the supermarket produce tastes like it was made out of 85% post-consumer recycled material. This is where a little technique and a little forethought create a culinary sleight-of-hand, an alchemical transformation by which the Cardboard Tomato becomes something good to eat.

Stale bread? Tasteless tomatoes? Dinner is served.

4 medium tomatoes

8 slices of bread

1/2 c Kalamata olives

1 shallot

splash of sherry vinegar

pinch of red pepper flakes

olive oil, as needed

2 oz. feta, crumbled

2 handfuls of arugula

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Halve and core the tomatoes; cut in half again to form quarters. WORKING OVER A LARGE MIXING BOWL, use your fingers to remove the seeds from the tomatoes. Place the seeds in the bowl. DO NOT DISCARD THE SEEDS!

There is a method to this madness: A recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated taught me that a tomato’s seeds contain a high proportion of glutamic acid, which is what gives many foods that savory quality that pretentious foodies love to call umami. Some recipes call for removing and discarding tomato seeds to improve a dish’s texture. Unfortunately, this sends a lot of flavor down the drain.

So, we’re going to use the tomato seeds. However, at this point in the recipe, we put the seedless tomato quarters in a baking dish and stick them in the oven. This will concentrate their flavor and banish all traces of Cardboardiness. We don’t want to roast the tomato seeds, though, because we need sufficient liquid to permeate the stale bread in the salad. If we were to keep the seeds in the tomatoes while they were in the oven, too much of this liquid would evaporate and we wouldn’t have enough moisture to dress the salad.

Roast the tomatoes for at least 15 minutes, until they start to shrivel. Meanwhile, cut the bread into 1-inch cubes. Place the cubes on a baking tray. Put the bread cubes in the oven beside (or underneath, or above—it doesn’t really matter) the tomatoes. Roast the bread cubes for about 12 minutes or so, until they are toasty. They should be done about the same time as the tomatoes are. If they’re not, you’re much pickier than I am.

Press down on a Kalamata olive with the flat side of a chef’s knife. Whack the knife with your hand to crush the olive. Remove and discard the pit. Repeat with the rest of the olives.

Roughly chop the olives and reserve in a bowl. Peel and thinly slice the shallot; add to the bowl with the olives.

In the mixing bowl with the tomato seeds, add the sherry vinegar, red pepper flakes, a small pinch of salt and several generous grinds of black pepper; stir to combine. Drizzle in some olive oil, whisking constantly, until a nice dressing is formed.

When the tomatoes and bread cubes are ready, add them to the dressing. Add the olives and shallots; toss to combine thoroughly. Check for seasoning. If you plan on serving the salad later, place in the refrigerator for a few hours. If you are going to serve it immediately, add the feta and arugula and toss to combine.

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[…] spicy, peppery arugula to share the spotlight. The one thing left to do for this sandwich is to upgrade the standard supermarket Cardboard Tomato. A little roasting does the trick (since we’re baking the bacon, we can just roast the […]